Category: Electricity

Energy Tradeoffs Podcast #34 – Michael Wara, Part I

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This Thursday’s EnergyTradeoffs.com podcast features Stanford University’s Michael Wara talking with David Spence about his research on California’s wildfire policies. This week’s podcast episode is the first part of a two-part series on “PG&E’s Wildfire Liability and Bankruptcy: Who Pays?”

This episode focused on wildfire causes, liability, and victims. David and Michael talk about why Northern California has been so vulnerable to fires in recent years, including how fire prevention practices have differed from those in Southern California. They also discuss why utilities have been shutting off power to avoid fires and how customers have responded to the risk that their power supply will be cut off.

Michael appears frequently in the media as an expert on PG&E, wildfires, and liability. Just last week he released a new NBER working paper on “The Changing Risk and Burden of Wildfire in the US.” If you’d like more background on wildfire law and policy, I can recommend two articles by Karen Bradshaw of Arizona State: a 2010 piece titled “A Modern Overview of Wildfire Law” and a 2015 piece on stakeholder collaborations in wildfire policy.

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Energy Tradeoffs Podcast #32 – Rossi & Serkin

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This Thursday’s EnergyTradeoffs.com podcast episode features features the University of Texas’s David Spence interviewing Vanderbilt Law School’s Jim Rossi and Chris Serkin about their proposal for “Energy Exactions“.

Jim and Chris describe this proposal, which would have local governments impose “a fee on development … that is designed to avoid strains on the energy grid.” It would build on existing negotiations between developers and local governments that often require developers to pay for some of the local services they will require. To comply with an energy exaction, a developer could either pay for the new burden it would place on the energy grid or even pay for energy-saving technologies that would eliminate this burden.

This discussion explores Jim and Chris’s recent paper, which was published in the Cornell Law Review and is also titled “Energy Exactions“.

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Energy Tradeoffs Podcast #31 – Yael Lifshitz

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Today’s EnergyTradeoffs.com podcast episode features Yael Lifshitz, from King’s College London, talking with me about her research on “Private Energy, Private Law, & the Green Transition.”

Yael describes her research on how private law interacts with our public policy goals for an energy transition. As one example, she describes how private leases for housing often are roadblocks to installing rooftop solar on rental units. As more people rely on rentals, this can seriously limit rooftop solar. Yael proposes private law solutions that could remove these roadblocks.

Yael also explains her research on conflicts between neighboring landowners over wind power. She describes how extraction of wind power by one landowner can have both local and area-wide impacts. Yael suggests how policymakers can look to water law and oil and gas law for possible solutions to these conflicts.

The discussion builds on two of Yael’s recent articles: “Private Energy,” which was published in the Stanford Environmental Law Journal, and “Winds of Change: Drawing on Water Doctrines to Establish Wind Law,” which was published in the NYU Environmental Law Journal.

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Energy Tradeoffs Podcast #30 – Rhodes & Meehan

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This week’s EnergyTradeoffs.com podcast episode features David Spence interviewing Joshua Rhodes & Colin Meehan about their research on “Keeping the Lights on in a High Renewables Grid.”

Josh & Colin explain the concept of grid “inertia” and why it is so important for grid stability. The grid must always maintain the same frequency and inertia steadies this frequency when a power plant suddenly goes offline. They explain that wind and solar power do not provide the same inertia as conventional plants but describe ways of making the grid flexible to accommodate high levels of renewable power nevertheless.

Josh & Colin also describes how renewable power sources can provide “fast frequency response” as a substitute for inertia. But they explain that doing so would require reducing power output from these sources, which might require modifying markets to pay for ancillary services that maintain the grid’s frequency.

The discussion builds on one of Josh’s recent articles: “Evaluating rotational inertia as a component of grid reliability with high penetrations of variable renewable energy,” which was published last year in the journal Energy.

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Energy Tradeoffs Podcast #26 – Michael Gerrard

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This week’s EnergyTradeoffs.com podcast episode features Columbia’s Mike Gerrard talking with Shelley Welton about his research on “Deep Decarbonization: Legal Impediments to a Massive Renewables Build-Out.”

In the interview, Mike explains why dramatic cutting U.S. greenhouse gas emissions will require a massive build out of new zero-carbon power sources to 1) replace coal and gas power plants and 2) electrify the other parts of the energy system that currently depend on fossil fuels, such as gasoline for cars and natural gas for heating. Mike and Shelley explore how federal environmental statutes, especially the National Environmental Policy Act, are holding up new investment in renewable energy.

The discussion relates to a larger project, known as “Legal Pathways to Deep Decarbonizaton” and Mike’s 2017 article in the Environmental Law Reporter, “Legal Pathways for a Massive Increase in Utility-Scale Renewable Generation Capacity.”

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Energy Tradeoffs Podcast #25 – Victoria Mandell

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Another week, another EnergyTradeoffs.com podcast episode. This week, Victoria Mandell of GRID Alternatives talks with the University of Colorado’s  Sharon Jacobs about Victoria’s work on “Energy Poverty, Energy Burden and Rooftop Solar.”

Victoria and Sharon talk about why some policies that favor rooftop solar are regressive: “You have low income customers paying for high income customers to have solar on their roofs.” Victoria explains the complex interactions between equity, efficiency, and environmental goals in adding more solar energy to the grid.

Victoria has published some of her thoughts on energy poverty, rooftop solar, and the Colorado Public Utility Commission in this brief post: “Environmental and Economic Justice in Distributed Solar Energy Investment.”

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Energy Tradeoffs Podcast #23 – Arne Olson

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This Thursday’s EnergyTradeoffs.com podcast episode features Arne Olson talking with David Spence about his research on achieving a reliable transition to low-carbon energy on the West Coast. This week’s 18-minute podcast is the first part of a two-part series on “Modeling Decarbonization in the West,” and it focuses on the Pacific Northwest.

Arne and David’s discussion focuses on the reasons that natural gas may play a continuing useful role in the grid as it moves to lower and lower carbon emissions. Arne explains why the grid can decarbonize while maintaining natural gas power to ensure reliability during emergencies.

The interview builds on Arne’s recent paper, “Resource Adequacy in the Pacific Northwest.”

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Energy Tradeoffs Podcast #22 – Leah Stokes

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Happy new year! For this week’s EnergyTradeoffs.com podcast interview, we have David Spence interviewing Leah Stokes, from the University of California – Santa Barbara about her research on “The Politics of Technology Transitions.”

Leah and David discuss politically sustainable methods of accomplishing an energy transition, focusing on Leah’s research on the history of policies supporting renewable and zero-carbon technologies. She traces a trajectory for transition that begins with subsidies to nurture new technologies until they are politically potent enough to take on incumbent industries. Leah and David also discuss Texas’s support for solar and wind power.

The discussion builds on three papers that Leah has recently published with co-authors: “The political logics of clean energy transitions,” “Politics in the U.S. energy transition: Case studies of solar, wind biofuels and electric vehicles policy,” and “Renewable Energy Policy Design and Framing Influence Public Support in the United States.”

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Energy Tradeoffs Podcast #21 – Joshua Macey

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This week’s EnergyTradeoffs.com podcast episode features Cornell’s Joshua Macey talking with David Spence about his research on “Renewables and Reliability in Competitive Wholesale Electricity Markets.”

In the interview, Joshua explains why electric power providers in competitive markets are relying more and more on capacity markets, which pay them just for being available to provide power, and less on energy markets, which pay them only when they are actually providing power. He critiques the way that interstate grid operators and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission have implemented these capacity markets, arguing that current rules discriminate against renewable resources such as wind and solar power.

The discussion builds on Joshua’s forthcoming University of Pennsylvania Law Review article with Jackson Salovaara, “Rate Regulation Redux.”

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Energy Tradeoffs Podcast #20 – Carey King

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Today’s EnergyTradeoffs.com podcast episode features David Spence interviewing Carey King, his colleague at the University of Texas, about Carey’s research on “Economic Growth, Inequality & Decarbonization.”

Carey and David discuss several ways that transitioning to cleaner energy sources will change the economy. In particular, Carey notes that “lower carbon infrastructure tends to be higher capital cost relative to operating cost, implying less labor and lower employment” and explains how this could affect economic growth and inequality.

NB: This increased emphasis on capital investment means that the cost of cleaner energy will increasingly depend on reducing the cost of capital, a challenging task in a time of legal uncertainty. I have recently published two pieces on this topic: “Energy Market and Policy Revolutions: Regulatory Process and the Cost of Capital” and “Pipelines & Power-Lines: Building the Energy Transport Future.”

The discussion builds on two of Carey’s recent articles: “Modeling the point of use EROI and its implications for economic growth in China” & “Delusions of grandeur in building a low-carbon future.”

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